Many firms have benefited greatly from the use of free and open source software, and some forget to return the favor. Not Facebook. The social networking giant is paying back the Apache Foundation after using the open source server software for many years. Developer.com has the details.
After spending years using open source Apache Software Foundation (ASF) technologies to help build its social networking site, Facebook is now spending its money to give back to effort.
Facebook is now a gold sponsor of the ASF, contributing $40,000 per year to the open source foundation and its initiatives. Facebook uses a number of Apache technologies, including Hadoop.
“A sponsor provides a direct monetary contribution to the ASF, which we can use for a variety of functions, such as increasing or updating our infrastructure, sponsoring project meet-ups and paying our bills,” ASF Chairman Jim Jagielski told InternetNews.com. “This extends and enhances the relationship that the ASF has had with Facebook.”
The ASF just recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and is home to many popular open source projects including the Apache HTTP Web server. One of the hallmarks of the ASF is that it is a meritocracy for developers, and that money is not the key influencer for technical decisions.